denial and reality checks

There are sooo many folks out on the trail this week. I'm just walking along and amazed at all the people running by! The collective energy of early January is an intoxicating time for those of us who love optimism and potential (me!). 

I like my optimism, and even though I've learned I can sometimes overdo it, I'm still really grateful for my rose-colored glasses during some really difficult years. It helped me get through. (Melody Beattie calls denial "a shock absorber for our soul"—it helps us get through until we're ready to look at things straight on.)

But now I really want to see all the nooks and crannies, and for my optimistic-leaning self, that means seeking out reality checks and honest appraisals, even when life is hard.

It's a process of becoming aware, and it's the first part of any change.

"Becoming aware" sounds simple, but, if, like me, you spent years hiding from some painful aspects of reality, it can be pretty challenging. And also I've discovered that it's like a breath of fresh air when you're finally willing to look at things straight on. 

Here's how you begin: say (ideally out loud) I am willing to become aware of ___(whatever you think you might be avoiding)___. 

And then sees what comes.

And continue to carry that willingness. 

So that's what I'm up to. Just walking along and in awe of all the potential out there while also doing some honest appraisals. 

What about you? Is "becoming aware" something you're practicing? If you want support in this process, coaching can really help. I'm here.

Take good care,
Brianna

rebuilding trust

In coaching, I love helping folks begin to taste what it looks like to trust themselves and this life (probably because this has been the deepest longing and work for myself as well). Trust changes everything, and in a world full of so much fear and mistrust, I've found that working with and generating trust is transformative and foundational work. 

In her Rebuilding Trust course, Episcopal priest and modern mystic Cynthia Bourgeault talks about how we don't have to wait until a situation or person becomes trustworthy for us to begin working with trust. She says that trust is a powerful spiritual substance that we can receive and bestow independent of the situation and the outcome, and that it's a kind of "nutrient" for our malnourished world.

Cynthia writes: "To our usual psychological way of looking at things, trust must be earned; it is called forth in response to demonstrated trustworthiness. But there is another way of approaching trust, which has always been the way of the great saints and mystics. From this other angle of approach trust is not earned so much as bestowed—from a fathomless strength and freedom which lies latent in every human soul."

I recently had to make a difficult decision about a situation that was full of mistrust and doubt and confusion. I leaned into this idea that I could still bring trust, and it actually shifted the energy and moved the gridlock in a profound way. 

Trust clears the damp air of confusion and control—internally and externally. 

We don't even have to wait for ourselves to become "trustworthy" to begin the work of trusting ourselves.You can start trusting yourself now—and this act of trusting yourself heals and shifts your sense of self-worth.

If you want to try working with this you can begin by just checking in with yourself about small things—what socks do you want to wear, what do you want for lunch today? And then trust the answer you get and follow it.  Or if you are making a little larger decision, you can ask yourself, how can I bring trust to this situation? 

How does this idea of generating trust land with you?

With gratitude,
Brianna

labor and magic

I wanted to send out a love letter to any of you dreading the extra work involved in making the holidays "magical." 

First off, you're not alone

I like reading the newsletters from Hedgebrook, a woman-focused writing retreat center on Whidbey Island. A few months ago the director of Hedgebrook, Kimberly Wilson, was talking about labor and magic and it really stuck with me. She wrote:

"A single word shows up in most every conversation at or about our island writing retreat, in every cottage journal entry and article, within every book acknowledgement. 'Magic' is the go-to descriptor for Hedgebrook’s 48 acres, equal parts forest and fairy tale....But I suspect they know, as do you, that there is nothing supernatural about radical hospitality, good food attentively prepared and beautiful spaces lovingly tended."

I loved reading the explicitness of this. And Kimberly Wilson went on to share how the term "magic" is also often used to "erase the holiday-related labor of women."

Like Hedgebrook, the holidays are not made up of magical forces making things special but detailed care work and emotional and physical labor. This needs to be named and chosen (or not chosen) rather than erased and assumed. 

I remember my mom really downplaying the whole santa thing because she said she wasn't going to give santa all the credit for her thoughtful and amazing gifts. So true!

Having an honest awareness of what's actually involved in holiday traditions allows us (and our families) to discover choices. It shifts the energy.

Less erasing and more naming and choosing.

And maybe the holidays can be a little less "magically magical" but a lot more ease-full. 

What do you think? And if you want some help shifting the energy this time of year, I'm here for you. 

Warmly,

Brianna

P.S. A poem by Rilke on laboring and letting go. 

making amends to your younger self

This is the me who was calling all the shots on that retreat. She has lots of great ideas. :)

Some years ago I took my younger self on a silent retreat as a way of making amends. I told my younger self that I wanted to hang out with her during the retreat and get to know her (she was thrilled and floored).

It ended up being four magical days of self-compassion, a kind of living amends as they call it in 12-step groups. And it's something I now practice often.

What I learned on that retreat was that the first step in making amends to our younger self (and younger can be you as a child or you ten years ago or it can be the you of five minutes ago) is to acknowledge that amends are even needed, that harm has been done.

To admit to the truth of the harm is to see and honor that younger part of you and let that part be visible—this can't be skipped.

When I told that younger part of me that I wanted to spend time with her and then proceeded to do just that it was a living amends because I had spent so many years living for others and leaving myself. And it wasn't an intellectual exercise. It was an embodied experience.

For those four days, I checked in with my younger self and let her choose the activities, the food, the books I read, what time I went to bed, etc.

And I experienced the amends in my heart and in my body. When we make amends, trapped energy can flow again.

With love,
Brianna

a remedy for exhaustion

I was at the library the other day and I had a flashback of being there when my kids were young. They are now thirteen and sixteen, but for those younger years we made a lot of trips to the library. 

Back then there were so many days when I faced the tension of their desire for growth and autonomy—to do it themselves!—and yet so many things weren’t safe or they created huge messes for me or they just weren't really able to do it and they would get frustrated trying and I would get frustrated waiting. 

So I loved that blessed moment at the library when they would yell I’m going to do it and run to the computer to check out their books and they could!

The stakes were low enough and yet the process was official and important and necessary—first finding the books they wanted, then carrying the stack over to the big computers, then scanning their library card, and then the little beep as they scanned each book (and sometimes it took many tries), and then placing each book into their book bag, the more the better, and finally carrying their full bags out to the car.

I think they loved being responsible for their whole experience, and it also helped that adults were doing the exact same important thing at other computers right next to them. 

It's like Maria Montesorri’s idea that children want to learn to sweep rather than just have a heap of toys—they want to find the edge of self-mastery. 

Having the flashback of my kids at the library made me realize that I also want this for myself. Of course! (I think that's why this memory came up for me right then...do memories ever work like that for you?) I, too, am seeking new ways to take responsibility and find my edge of mastery. 

But this realization also surprised me because, like most people these days, life can feel pretty overwhelming and exhausting. Can you be exhausted and also want to find your edge of mastery? Can the two exist together? 

The poet David Whyte has been on my mind, and he recounts a conversation he had with his good friend and Benedictine monk Brother David Stendl-Rast. These two Davids were talking about how David Whyte was dealing with burnout out in his nonprofit job (trying to fix the world—ha!) and feeling afraid to follow his desire to become a full-time poet.

David Whyte asked Br. David to speak to him about exhaustion. Br. David told him that the antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest, that the antidote can be wholeheartedness. 

I love this. I also don't think it's either/or. In our productivity-obsessed hustle culture, rest is a powerful medicine. And sometimes the remedy for exhaustion is also wholeheartedness—letting go of our halfhearted efforts and finding what enlivens us and moving toward it with our whole heart. We often desperately need both rest and wholeheartedness...and I would add finding our edges of self-mastery, which is connected to wholeheartedness. 

And I don't think this longing for rest, self-mastery, and wholeheartedness applies just to our work. You could be drawn toward exploring a new edge in your relationships, in your parenting, on your spiritual path, in your creativity, in your body. 

Right now I'm being drawn toward a new edge—I want to teach some coach-y type classes. I’m thinking about…
 
1. crafting a kind and friendly writing/art/creative practice

2. clearing out old ideas about God and yourself (old religious trauma can really drive the bus and affect so much in life!)

3. making amends to your younger self

We’ll see what comes. 

Warmly,
Brianna

P.S.  My coaching and teaching are not about perfecting ourselves or personal betterment projects. For me, the miracle of this kind of inner work is that when we consciously take responsibility for our life and walk our path, we become a nourishment to our world. 

the new planner

I was on the hunt for the perfect planner for years. I also thought if I could just find the right clock with the perfect alarm, that might solve everything, too. Ha!

I thought my problems were poor time management and organization, that I just needed to be more disciplined. 

I have such compassion for the me that believed that for all those years. It was a good guess, as Elizabeth Gilbert says. But it was also really hard on me. I felt like I was constantly failing. 

And I remember when I read David Whyte's The Three Marriages (a beautiful book about the marriage to another person, to our self, and to our work), and these words stopped me in my hunting tracks:

"The sober truth is that any of us can find the time to write a book, no matter the schedule of unstoppable events in our life. Finding the part of us that wants to write the book is a different matter altogether....It takes a good, settled sense of what we are about, first to think that we deserve the time, and then to arrange our day so that what we want comes about.” 

I think you can apply David's insight to any kind of longing or desired change, not just the longing to write a book. And it is a sobering truth.

His words named why all my efforts for change hadn't panned out. It wasn't about finding the right amount of time. It was about finding me! And I could hardly believe the agency that David was offering—that I had the power to arrange my day so that what I wanted would come about. Really?!

This quote lived for many years at the top of whatever Word document was holding my thoughts and dreams. And it reminded me to connect first with my longing and trust in its deservingness and then, miracle of miracles, the timing/arranging seemed to flow with a lot more ease. 

Of course finding and believing in the part of us that wants to make the thing or make the change is not quick and easy. But it helped me so much to look upstream—to know that this was the starting point, the place to begin. 

Have you been stuck in the cul-de-sac of thinking time management or a lack of discipline was causing all your problems? 

I really hope this shift in perspective helps. 
Brianna

Plugging the leaks

My grandmother used to talk about filling someone's bucket as an image for loving them. We've gotta help fill each other's buckets, she would say. Or if someone was having a bad day she would say their bucket got a little low. And I remember us talking about how some people seemed to have really leaky buckets. 

My grandmother had a sense of an energetic container that was part of life, and she planted a seed in me. I've since learned about spotting and plugging my energetic leaks as a kind of spiritual/wisdom practice so that I can gather and collect a deeper part of myself and live from there (thank you Cynthia Bourgeault).

I love this. I want to be present to the deeper part of me and live more often from that place.

And this inner work isn't about perfecting me. It's about taking responsibility for myself, which allows me to show up for what's needed in our world. And with a little sturdier bucket, as my grandmother taught me, I have excess love (and sanity) to share. 

What do you think? Where do you have unconscious energetic leaks?

Is there a seed your grandmother planted in you?

Gratefully,
Brianna

Desire

I recently read Alice Walker's Gathering Blossoms Under Fire, a collection of her journals from 1962-2000, and it is such a fascinating and intimate exploration. It's also an act of revolution: "While Walker was keeping these journals, virtually all published diarists were white."

Some pages were tallies of her income and questions about being able to cover her expenses in her early years and then tallies and questions about real estate purchases in her later years. A sobering amount of pages were filled with the ups and downs of her romantic relationships. Some pages were about her writing life, her activism, her meditation practice, struggles with depression, her sexuality, and her garden.

The book is 500+ pages, and I was rapt! I kept thinking how brave she was to let her journals be published—most people want to keep their journals private and most authors would at least want to wait until they die before having them published. And the wild part was that at the beginning of her early journals and before all her recognition for A Color Purple she writes about having a sense that her journals would someday be published. I found this desire and ambition remarkable! And then she really didn't seem to hold back on what was included—it gets messy, as all lives do.

Walker's openness and passion for and trust in her desires is what made me want to keep reading entry after entry, and her faithful recordings of the details of life pointed toward the value she found in the supposed "mundane." I loved reading the thoughts of a woman who was writing, loving, and learning how to be at home with herself, and she's also a woman who prefers to have multiple homes, thank you very much!

Yes to it all,
Brianna

why the writing strategies never seem to last

I'm so excited because I re-read my poetry manuscript the other day and I liked it. This is a huge for a couple reasons. First, I didn't write for pleasure for years, so the fact that I have a manuscript is amazing. Now, when I want to write I usually do. Imagine that! And second, because the overall process has been light and playful, something I never thought possible. 

I credit the foundation for this shift to one main thing: I started to actually like myself (which is probably why I like my manuscript). My baseline shifted from generally treating myself critically or with hostility to treating myself more and more with genuine care, trust, and friendliness. 

I think this discussion is missing from a lot of the writing/art/creativity books and classes. 

But it can be really helpful and feel so good to name why all the strategies and tools just don't seem to ever last or why setting your alarm a little earlier to make time for your writing isn't the key to everything. It's like you finally know what you're dealing with, which is where we must get to before we can really begin. 

I love the poem “Distant Regard” by Tony Hoagland. It's about finding that place of self-friendliness, and it's from his final collection that he wrote shortly before he died, Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God. (His book titles are all amazing.) 

Yes to the idea of forgiving ourselves "like water, flowing around obstacles and second thoughts."

What do you think? Do you struggle with self-friendliness or self-kindness and do you think it's directly connected to any angst/tension you have with your writing/art/creativity? I'd love to hear. 

Gratefully,
Brianna

wild puttering

I was recently trying to answer this question from a class I’m taking—what do you dream about or visualize when you imagine your future?

I closed my eyes and sat still and I had a faint vision of me puttering around a cozy home. Yep, that's it. And I was surprised, like really imagination, that’s the best you can come up with? It seemed like my dreams should be a bigger. Ha!
 
I had a session with a spiritual director some years ago and I told her some of what I was grappling with as I was facing some big decisions in my life. She stood up and said she wanted to tell me something. And then she spread out her feet in a wide stance and put her hands on her hips and said: In the next ten years you are going to become a wild woman.
 
I couldn't see it then, but I loved that she could. She had a vision for my future, and in those intervening years, I remember borrowing from her vision, which perhaps is a very solid way to begin. 

And what I've discovered over the years is that each person's version of "wild" looks different. My version of wild is less about big, bold adventures and more about the inner travels, and no version is right or wrong, just good to know.

For me, it's like this—let’s say there is a woman who moves from her bed to the kitchen table to the walk around her neighborhood to her desk to the kitchen table to the couch to her bed and her atmosphere is a calm pond around her and she lives behind her belly button. She is not constantly dispersed waves going out to her lover and child and the dying tree and the thing she said yesterday. She is contained within herself and she is present. She is making something. She is in fact smelling of almonds while the earth circles the sun.

Whew, she sounds like a wild woman, and like she enjoys puttering around a cozy home.  :)

Gratefully,
Brianna

P.S. Wanna dream together? I'm here to help folks listen for and move toward their truest selves and truest dreams. And this kind of work is not about achieving and checking off individual goals. This is about trusting ourselves, and when we begin to trust and align with our own deep desires we can begin to take conscious responsibility for the life we've been given, which is a "mighty kindness" as Rumi says—it actually lightens the load of everything and everyone around us. 

asking for help

Some good news, in case you've been short on good news.

I was on my trash collection company's website and saw this:

I called to let you know that I am very grateful for the drivers today. I had my can up by the garage due to an emergency and was not able to take it to the curb. I called and dispatch said they would try to get it picked up. I came home and the driver did in fact pick it up. I just wanted to say thanks! -Horsetooth Reservoir Customer

I don't know, something about this really moved me. Maybe it was just the simplicity of someone asking for help (it can be so hard to ask for help!) and help being given (thank you driver!). 

I read Joy Hajo's memoir Poet Warrior last month (so good!), and I can't stop thinking about her poem "Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet." Do yourself a favor and read the full poem here! 

With gratitude,
Brianna

Not done yet

My new neighbor worked so hard to hang the garland of peace flags in her backyard. I think it was one of the first things she did after she moved in. If you've recently moved or you remember how exhausting moving is, then you'll join me in finding this remarkable. 

My kitchen window looks onto her backyard and I was bringing a dish to the sink when I saw her hanging one side of the strand of flags from her plum tree. She was alone and was standing on a patio chair reaching up to the tree. And when I came back to the kitchen later, I saw that she had hung the other side of the garland below the eave of her house.

I think it was windy that night and the next morning I looked out my window and the peace flags had fallen from the tree-side and lay crumpled on the ground under the eave where the one side was still hanging.

And then she was out there again and this time I saw a step ladder and she did something to really secure the peace flags to the tree because they haven’t fallen since. Perhaps an eye hook screwed into the tree?
 
We recently moved, too, and my daughter became consumed with hanging lights over the deck. She kept talking about it until I finally ordered some lights and when they came I told her it was going to have to wait, that I was tired and didn’t feel like hanging them that day.

So of course she tried to hang them by herself (with thumbtacks) and they fell and a couple of the bulbs broke. My mom was visiting and she patiently replaced the bulbs and the fuse that had blown and then the three of us cleaned up the broken glass and hung the lights over the deck and my tall son made an appearance to reach a high branch. I thought the lights were kind of silly (I have much bigger things to worry about!) and actually lit up the patio too much. But then it was dusk, and I really liked them.

It's baffling, this thrust and determination to make things better, even in the smallest ways. Sometimes I am consciously participating, like my daughter, my mom, and my neighbor. And sometimes I am giving up. And sometimes I am simply baffled, stunned into silence by the impulse that (thankgod) seems to continue in the collective on behalf of us all. 

I'm thinking of Lucille Clifton's poem "i am not done yet." Have you seen the beautiful letterpress print of this poem from Expedition Press?

With gratitude,
Brianna